Tom Jackson of the Sandusky Register in Ohio writes about some of the issues facing business reporters in covering Black Friday.
Jackson writes, “The task involved talking to store managers, asking hard-hitting investigative journalism questions such as ‘Are you offering special bargains?’ and ‘When are you opening Friday?’
“Many stores seemed fine with the free publicity, but some companies ban their local outlets from answering even the safest questions.
“When I called Toys R Us to check a report that it would open at midnight Friday, a store employee put me on hold to summon a manager. I asked him when the store would open Friday, and he insisted he could not tell me.
“‘All comments will be made by the corporate level,’ he told me.
“The manager at Kohl’s wouldn’t talk to me either, but offered to give me a phone number for a corporate spokesman hundreds of miles away if I wanted to ask about plans for the Sandusky store. I told her no thanks.”
Read more here.
